LOL, and as one might have guessed, BO is playing re-runs of marketing folks lying about mockups in their 'production' facility.

Watching this, they are pushing what feels like vapor ware. It's all about something that doesn't even exist.

nortex97 said:

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Yep, it's frustrating.

Some good news though; nuclear thermal propulsion award to GA. I do believe that for nuclear thermal to advance Nasa support is needed, and General Atomics is a great partner here. BWXT I believe is the other one we discussed here a ways back (also moving forward).

Quote:

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General Atomics' Christina Back: Nuclear thermal propulsion "will enable spacecraft to travel immense distances quickly"

WASHINGTON The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded a $22 million contract to General Atomics to design a small nuclear reactor for space propulsion, the agency announced April 9.

General Atomics, based in San Diego, California, was selected for the first phase of a program known as a DRACO, short for demonstration rocket for agile cislunar operations. The project is to demonstrate nuclear thermal propulsion or the use of a nuclear reactor to heat up rocket fuel to generate thrust.

DARPA's Tactical Technology Office in May 2020 solicited proposals in a "broad agency announcement." The goal is to test a nuclear thermal propulsion system in orbit by 2025.

Space propulsion systems in use today include electric and chemical propulsion, but other options might be needed for future exploration beyond Earth's orbit, DARPA noted. "The DRACO program intends to develop novel nuclear thermal propulsion technology. Unlike propulsion technologies in use today, NTP can achieve high thrust-to-weights similar to chemical propulsion but with two to five times the efficiency.'

The ability to monitor cislunar space the volume of space between the Earth and the moon will require a "leap-ahead in propulsion technology," said DARPA.

The DRACO program will attempt to demonstrate a nuclear thermal propulsion system on orbit. A nuclear reactor will heat propellant to extreme temperatures before expelling the hot propellant through a nozzle to produce thrust.

Christina Back, vice president of nuclear technologies and materials at General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, said nuclear thermal propulsion is a "leap ahead of conventional propulsion technology and will enable spacecraft to travel immense distances quickly."

"Agile spacecraft are critical to maintain space domain awareness and significantly reduce transit times in the vast cislunar region," Back said in a statement to SpaceNews.

For space exploration such as human missions to Mars, Back said, "nuclear propulsion will allow for more versatility of launch windows, and enable longer stays on the planet itself."

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Any info on how fast these ships can travel? Our rockets currently travel around 24,000 mph is memory served. I'm just curious.

I want to see a G-Force graph for what that final stage burn/landing looks like. Going from 2000+ mph to 0 mph in 35 seconds cannot feel too fun.

Fatty McFat Face is going to feel like a whale is on top of him for little while. Quick napkin math shows ~3-3.5g avg for 35-40 seconds. That about right?

RulesForTheeNotForMe said:

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I want to see a G-Force graph for what that final stage burn/landing looks like. Going from 2000+ mph to 0 mph in 35 seconds cannot feel too fun.

Fatty McFat Face is going to feel like a whale is on top of him for little while. Quick napkin math shows ~3-3.5g avg for 35-40 seconds. That about right?

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Nobody rides the 1st stage down...

They would be in the capsule. That looks like a pretty gentle ride down.

Brad06ag said:

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RulesForTheeNotForMe said:

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I want to see a G-Force graph for what that final stage burn/landing looks like. Going from 2000+ mph to 0 mph in 35 seconds cannot feel too fun.

Fatty McFat Face is going to feel like a whale is on top of him for little while. Quick napkin math shows ~3-3.5g avg for 35-40 seconds. That about right?

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Nobody rides the 1st stage down...

They would be in the capsule. That looks like a pretty gentle ride down.

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Oh... Well that makes more sense. Adrenaline junkies are disappointed by that revelation.

Entirely unimpressed at this point with suborbital blasts like this. It's not like this is a second stage they are testing, this is it, the whole rocket which amounts to diddly squat.

There are companies I think that have been started after new Shepard's first flight that have put real things into orbit.

I think the whole point is for "tourism"...basically pay Jeffy Poo a ****load of money to go 1 mile into space (just eyeballing the altitude chart). I really want to know how much they think they're going to make like that? Not enough to cover the amount of time and resources they've spent on it, that's for sure.

The New Shepard test flight today was about 10 and half minutes from launch to capsule touchdown from what I saw. Not sure how many of those minutes are actually close to the flight apogee.

It is a major pain for them to get the rocket man-rated for their tourists. I will give them that.

I think their orbital aspirations are all tied up in the BE-4 engine they have been developing for years. I will believe the BE-4 is ready to go as soon as I see a ULA Vulcan actually fly with them.

The tooling for the centaur isn't going to change, and all I'm talking about doing in the end is adding a superstructure for docking. If you ditch the ICPS, heavy should have no trouble aerodynamically with the orion, it's not that heavy with no LES and NO ICPS.

I gave up watching BO launches. At this point I really don't think they give a rats about the capsule or booster, i dont think they actually plan to do anything with tourism...They're using scientific payload to pay for the launches. And the launches are being used to test and refine the landing system they're using, which is what they're developing for both the Nat team lander and the commercial lander for cargo. It's also a way to keep their name out for the public, and keep telling people they're doing something.

I can't find the video, but I was listening to something a while back where they came up with a cost per launch, and what they would have to charge per seat to make a profit, and you're talking the cost of an inexpensive car per 10 minute flight that barely gets you into space.

Using a Vulcan Centaur upper stage (probably the in development 4 engine one) to blast Orion to TLI does make some sense (ACES would make more sense) after EOR rendezvous, following Crew Dragon launch of the crew, and FH for the HLS (unless moonship is selected, LOL).

Though, I'm not sure it wouldn't be easier to just use Vulcan Centaurs for the lower as well by the time this would all get sorted out (except to get the crew up obviously). Then there's no issue figuring out how to fuel one of those up from 39 on top of a FH...



Ultimately, the details could be worked out, relatively easily, imho, and we agree. The thing is that unlike in the 60's, in orbit rendezvous are now comparatively simple vs. when it took a lot a grit/skill to guide the things by hand basically (well, not for Boeing, obviously, which can't even reach the space station). So, it shouldn't require a huge leap of faith if/when anything next goes wrong with SLS, to look pragmatically at the options to just send it all up separately, one way or the other and go from there.

If/when the Vulcan centaur becomes operational, if it's more efficient, by all means use it. I'm...concerned about that vehicle, simply because of BO. I have to wonder if ULA has an alternative to the BE-4 that could be swapped in, or if any contingency for keeping atlas in operation has been made.

Orion, without the insane LES it has ended up requiring, probably is not the worst option we have for human lunar exploration, at least until starship becomes viable, I just wish it wasn't saddled with SLS.

I do like what Sierra Nevada is doing with their inflatable station modules also being designed for possible use as a spacecraft.

Agreed on Sierra Nevada. I'm just concerned the Vulcan Centaur upper won't work on any other launch vehicle (it's a lot larger/wider). BO has actually run BE-4 quite a bit, hoping it works well somehow.

Next Crew Dragon launch is now prepped;

Quote:

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For the third time ever, SpaceX has installed a Crew Dragon spacecraft scheduled to launch astronauts on the Falcon 9 rocket that'll carry it to orbit, sailing past one of the mission's last major preflight milestones.

Known as Crew-2, the NASA Commercial Crew Program (CCP) mission will be SpaceX's second operational crew ferry mission after its operational Crew-1 debut launched flawlessly on November 15th, 2020. Since November 16th, the Crew-1 Crew Dragon has been docked to the International Space Station (ISS) in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) marking at least two major firsts and won't return to Earth until Crew-2 has safely joined it at the station.

Simultaneously developed as part of the Commercial Crew Program, a raft of technical and organizational shortcomings have extensively delayed Boeing's Starliner crew capsule, effectively forcing NASA to lean on SpaceX to pick up the slack with multiple back-to-back Crew Dragon missions. Organizational excellence aside, Crew-2 is also on track to secure two of the most significant reusability achievements in SpaceX's long history of significant reusability achievements.

Mere days after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft lifted off with NASA astronauts aboard for the first time ever, becoming the first crewed launch in history to use a commercially-developed rocket orspacecraft, the space agency effectively gave the company permission to fly its astronauts on flight-provenversions of those same vehicles.

While those plans have effectively fallen under the radar relative to other SpaceX activities, it's not unreasonable to say that a successful Crew-2 launch with both a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster and Crew Dragon capsule would be one of the most significant technical achievements in the company's history. At the bare minimum, it will be the most symbolically significant achievement in SpaceX's history.

In essence, success would mean that SpaceX has unequivocally proven that a private company can develop from scratch methods of rocket and spacecraft reusability that are so successful and so reliable that perhaps the most risk-averse customer on Earth is willing to place the lives of its astronauts in the hands of those flight-proven spacecraft and rockets. If SpaceX can accomplish that feat with Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon, there is no practical reason to doubt that it can be repeated with Starship a vehicle that has already piqued NASA's interest.

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B1061 is slated for her next crewed launch April 22nd.



Also, nasa is still sitting on their thumbs relative to starting the SpaceX lunar gateway contract (from a year ago), probably because they don't want it to get too far ahead of SLS actually doing anything at all.

Quote:

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NASA, in a statement provided to SpaceNews April 14, said it has yet to formally authorize SpaceX to proceed on the Gateway Logistics Services contract because the agency is studying the overall schedule of the Artemis lunar exploration program, of which development and use of the Gateway is just one part.

"An agency internal Artemis review team is currently assessing the timing of various Artemis capabilities, including Gateway. The goal of this internal review is to evaluate the current Artemis program budget and timeline, and develop high-level plans that include content, schedule, and budgets for the program," the agency stated.

"The timing for the Gateway Logistics Services program's authorization to proceed will be determined following conclusion of the review," NASA added, but provided no schedule for completing the review.
A NASA procurement database shows that the agency has obligated a little more than $14 million on its Gateway Logistics Services contract with SpaceX. Most of that $12.7 million came from a pair of contract modifications in September 2020 to cover work on enhanced communications and "heavy ion environment testing" for operations in cislunar space. Those two contract modifications are the most recent actions on the contract.

Another contact modification earlier in September 2020, valued at about $680,000, was described in the database as "Requirement Change Evaluation for Gateway Logistics Services Risk Mitigation Due to delayed Authority to Proceed."

It's not clear when missions to the Gateway that require cargo delivered by SpaceX will begin. NASA now expects to launch the first two Gateway modules, the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy in 2024 under a contract awarded Feb. 9. Additional elements from international partners, including Canada, Europe and Japan, will follow.

The soonest astronauts would visit the Gateway would be the Artemis 3 mission, launching no earlier than 2024. However, Contella noted in her presentation that NASA was still studying the option of having the Orion spacecraft for Artemis 3 dock directly with the lunar lander, rather than have both Orion and the lander dock with the Gateway as planned for later Artemis missions.

Once crews start visiting the Gateway, Contella said she expected the need for one cargo resupply mission per crewed mission, which will carry supplies and equipment for the astronauts staying on the Gateway and potentially additional science payloads. "It will be able to provide quite a number of payloads. The main issue is just the amount of upmass required in general for the crewed missions," she said. "There's a lot of logistics required just for the mission itself."

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Isn't it the same diameter as the deltas? Thought I remembered reading it was based loosely off of it. They've even closed the delta assembly line now though, haven't they? Thought I remembered reading all the remaining boosters are built and being stored.

Makes me wonder if they're expecting an SLS failure with the delay. I still don't buy that this admin really cares about manned flight, and with all the controversy, and budget restrictions, I don't know of where this will all go.

Would be interesting to see how Boeing and Lockheed would actually react to an SLS cancelation, or someone finding the guts to tell them they'd exceeded the limits of the contract, they wouldn't be payed further until they delivered.

I still enjoy this thread more than any other that's run on this board... y'all are fun to talk space with, and I know some of the contributors here have VASTLY more engineering knowledge on this.

The Delta DCSS (and ICPS) are a bit smaller/simpler 4 meter diameter 'things.'

Centaur 5 is a big change from 3; it's going to 5.4 meters in diameter (from the link I posted a few up above):

Quote:

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The very first Centaur we fly will be called Centaur 5. It will already have twice the propellant that Centaur 3 has. Centaur 3 (which flies on the Atlas V rocket) is 3.8 meters in diameter. The very first Centaur we fly on Vulcan will go straight to 5.4 meters in diameter. Then, what we will do in the second upgrade to Centaur is upgrade the thrust in the RL10 engines and make it even longer, to stretch the propellant tanks to give it even that much more energy. That's what takes it all the way to the Vulcan Heavy configuration.

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Quote:

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How is the RL10 upgrade being paid for?

There's a public-private partnership RPS contract in place right now that is developing the RL10CX, which also incorporates additive manufacturing into that engine. Editor's note: The RL10 engine is manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The RL10 is exquisite. It's a Swiss watch. It's handmade. There are tiny tubes and passages. No excess beef or weight or anything on it. So being able to take that into an additively manufactured engine is a huge advantage in time, cost, and quality because once you dial those automated processes in and get them right, you're not subject to the variability of people building them.

When we first fly the basic Centaur 5, it will have an existing RL10C on it. However, the other part of going to the Vulcan Heavy configuration is that not only will the tanks be bigger, it will be powered by an additively manufactured RL10CX engine with higher thrust. This involves private investment from us and our partner, Aerojet Rocketdyne, as well as a government co-investment. They have an RPS contract now to do that work. There will be work to finish it, and integrate it into the vehicle that will be part of our LSA activity.

You didn't mention ACES, the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage. Has that been deemphasized as an upper-stage option as you're trying to get Vulcan out the door?

It's just further down in the pipeline. It has always been in our roadmap after we start flying Vulcan. It still is. And now that we're into the hot-and-heavy development and fabrication and qualification of Vulcan, that's what we're talking about. But yeah, it's still on the roadmap, further out, where it always has been.

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I think they moved Vulcan to BE4 largely because Nasa wanted US engines, not russian/russian derivatives. I suppose they could fall back to the Russians but I really doubt they do. I think BO has still only delivered one 'flight ready' BE4 to ULA, and yes this is probably an ongoing problem for them as operational/production processes seem not to be worked out well.

Vulcan Centaur is at least 1 ft in diameter bigger than the Delta Common Booster Core (CBC), looks like 18 ft in diameter for both first and second stages, vs 17 for the CBC. Incidentally the Falcon 9 is 12 ft, so you would need a heck of an adapter to mount the Centaur V upper stage to a Falcon Heavy.

I have some suspicions that the Lunar Gateway delay with regards to SpaceX is political. First, we know that Elon don't have too many friends in Washington (and Nelson sure as hell ain't one of 'em). Second, Boeing and Lockheed are so far behind on SLS/Orion, and God only knows the timing on the lander, that they don't want SpaceX to further embarrass them by having the Lunar Gateway ready before SLS/Orion has even done a lap around the moon.

54,61,66

That looks like a scene from Transformers.

"NEW RAPTOR WHO DIS?"

PJYoung said:

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54,61,66

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I love spaceX...

Some of the most advanced rocket engines ever produced, Hey, Load up em on some pallets, throw them on Billy's gooseneck and haul them half way across Texas with no additional protection (assume these ship in from McGregor?).

I maintain they should let RSC and some of the equipment rental places put sponsorship stickers on starship.

Re: the be-4 and Russian engines.... doesn't Russia still throw a hissy fit if they're used for NROL or airforce launches? I don't think there's anyway energomash was going to keep supplying the rd180 at a reasonable price, especially with the russian govt pissed about spacex and throwing public tantrums.

I dunno how it would all work, but I'm pretty sure Lockheed knows how to make RD-180's if they want to. ULA has said they are ready to do this in Decatur if the BE4 doesn't work.

I guess for some reason it wouldn't be allowed for NRO/military launches per wikipedia, but that's all above my pay grade/security clearance/logical reasoning abilities. With Aerojet Rocketdyne now to be owned by LM, I would guess they would prefer an in-house solution if they do have to do so.

nortex97 said:

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LOL.

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"Clever Girl"

ULA builds the Vulcan and the Atlas on the same lines with the same equipment.

Launch slated for next week!

I'm going to try and make it down!

Kenneth_2003 said:

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ULA builds the Vulcan and the Atlas on the same lines with the same equipment.

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They're quite different however, regardless of the tooling. I don't think they share any significant components, though they are integrated next to each other as well.


It's a lot bigger;

Launch in 2021. Sure. 8.5 months and counting. You are on the clock boys.

double aught said:

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"NEW RAPTOR WHO DIS?"

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LOL, did they just go full on Russian here, and decide they needed a couple extra spot welds?

NASA will make an official announcement at 3pm.

Holy crap!

This is friggin' crazy. In a mostly good way, though frankly I favored the Dynetics bid in a 'if nortex made the decision' kind of way, so their finishing basically in third place is a bit disappointing.

Still, what a day for SpaceX and a knock down for the national scam team!